Center Stage: Spence-Tszyu in a fight for answers on a busy weekend

By Norm Frauenheim

Boxing, often said to be on the fringe, will be there and just about everywhere else this weekend with fights across the globe and the virtual universe.

Center Stage:

Down Under.

That’s where Errol Spence Jr. and Tim Tszyu will meet in Sydney in a middleweight fight intriguing because it’s hard to know what will happen.

Everything about it is uncertain, which is one way to describe the state of today’s boxing, a sport that’s already a working definition for chaos.

Spence hasn’t answered an opening bell in the three years since his devastating loss to Terence Crawford.  There were questions then. And now.

Spence has acknowledged them, which raises one of the biggies: Is this the end? Will he retire if he loses to Tszyu in a DAZN-streamed bout (Sunday in Australia/Saturday in the United States on a card scheduled to begin at 9 pm ET, 6 PM PT)?

“This feels similar to when I went over to England to fight Kell Brook,’’ said Spence, who during a media workout talked about a victory that turned him into a pound-for-pound contender before suffering serious injuries in a serious car crash. “The mentality doesn’t change at all. It’s me-versus-him, everything on the line.

“The hunger is still there, and I’m still here to show everyone that Errol Spence is still here.’’

Tszyu, himself, is fighting in his homeland to restore all the promise he had before losses to Sebastian Fundora.’

“I just want to get in there and smack him,’’ said Tszyu, who during pre-fight talk and turmoil said he wanted to damage and hurt Spence.  “…He seems ready. He looks strong. I want to see how bad he wants it. We’ll see how he reacts to getting hit.’’

We’ll see.

That’s the operative phrase, perhaps caveat, for everything else on this weekend’s busy schedule.

Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are fighting. Fury was scheduled to face Mariusz Wach in Thailand Friday in a fight not scheduled to be televised. It’ll be over when Joshua faces Kristian Prenga in Saudi Arabia Saturday on DAZN.

Both bouts are considered tune-ups for a projected all-UK showdown at Wembley Stadium later in the year. Then again, it almost feels as if their careers have been one long tune-up. UK fans have talked about Fury-Joshua for more years than anyone can remember.

We’ll see,or — if its Fury-Wach — maybe not.

It all ends Sunday with Zuffa in its New York debut at Madison Square Garden’s Infosys Theater with two Brooklyn-born fighters, super-middleweight Edgar Berlanga and welterweight Richardson Hitchins on Paramount Plus.

Berlanga faces Steven Butler; Hitchins fights Ricardo Salas.

Zuffa has already had plenty to say about the state of the game. Sunday, it has a chance at some final say-so about a weekend that might be the beginning to a new chapter in how boxing is run and who runs it.

Will Zuffa deliver with a powerful statement?

We’ll see.